Sunday Pictures

Asher – 4.5 years

Chancery - 2.5 years

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Chancery: “I bet you’ll never guess the surprise I have today.”

 

Asher: “Yes, they will.  I’m going to TELL them.”

 

Chancery: “You wouldn’t DARE!”

 

Chancery: “Fine, here’s a hint!”

 

Chancery: “See, Baby Emily & I have the same dress on!”

 

Asher: “Yeah, we’ve all seen it before…”

 

Chancery: “Stop being so grumpy, Asher, or I’ll KICK you!”

 

Asher: “What, you think I look grumpy?”

 

Chancery: “If you’re not grumpy, then smile to prove it!”

Dogs & Cats

Whether you like dogs or cats, here’s something to brighten your Friday.

and if you REALLY need to be cheered up, just watch BOTH!  They’re pretty cute…

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

Lovely Knife

When I was in high school, one Christmas I asked my parents for a pocket-knife.  I was a bit disappointed when I received the smallest possible Swiss Army Knife ever…

But I started carrying it around & it proved it’s usefulness time & time again.  It’s been used to cut the wayward strings off clothes, trim & file fingernails, remove splinters, & of course open packages.  When the kids’ toys need new batteries, I don’t have to search for a screwdriver to remove the battery covers.  When I worked in retail, I never had to borrow someone’s box-knife to open the tape on boxes.  It’s handy, & it’s useful.

Yesterday’s post about Asher locking my doorknob resulted in many comments advising buying a new knob for the door.  I had come to the same conclusion LAST time Asher locked the door, requiring a locksmith to open it.  IN fact we had it all figured out that we could take the knob & trade it for one on the storage room, since the storage room has 2 doors.  Even if Asher (or someone else) inadvertently locked the door, we could go in the other door & unlock it, no problem.  We just hadn’t gotten around to switching the doorknobs yet.

Sunday night, I set about trading the knobs.  I figured if we left it again, we’d be out another $40 in about a year’s time when someone had the bright idea to try it again.

I decided it was time to switch the knobs right then & there.  Since I always have a little knife in my pocket, I thought I’d try using that.  I got the basement knob off quite easily, I decided to trade knobs with Asher’s bedroom door too, so we could get the push-lock knob back on our door instead of his.  That knob was pretty easily removed & replaced as well, but when it came time to remove the offending key-lock on our door, it seemed that the bolting mechanism was a bit too big, so it had been jammed into the hole of the door quite tightly.

I almost had to get a real screwdriver…

PChad came to see what I was doing about half-way through & inquired about my choice of tools.  But my little knife was working fine, & it was handy when I started the project.

And when all was said & done, how many tools can boast being able to change 3 doorknobs, file fingernails, remove a sliver, & clean your teeth?

I’ve had to replace my original knife about 6 times due to forgetting to remove it from my pocket before flying.  I’ve had it in red, cobalt, & sapphire, mainly due to whatever colour happens to be available when I’m picking up a new one.


But I just discovered the new summer line… aren’t they pretty?

The Door Knob

Sunday Evening, I went upstairs to see what the kids were up to & noticed that my bedroom door was closed… and locked.  When we bought this house, there was a door knob on Asher’s room that took a key, but there was no key for it.  After he locked himself in his room & we had to talk him through getting the door unlocked, we switched door knobs with him.  So, now we had a locked door, requiring a key we don’t have, on our bedroom door. 

We had an incident about a year ago, where the kids accidentally locked our door & we had to call a locksmith to come unlock it for us.  That also happened on a Sunday evening.  I quickly ascertained that Asher was the one guilty of locking my door, so I got the interrogation underway…

Me: “Why did you lock my door?”

Asher: “Because it’s fun.”

Me: “Is it fun to be naughty?”

Asher: “No.”

Me: “Is it fun to be punished?”

Asher: “No.”

Me: “Then what’s fun about it?”

Asher: “Having the worker-man come to our house to open it.”

So I told Asher that he would have to pay for the locksmith to come open the door.  We headed up to his rom to count the contents of his bank & discovered that on the bill of $40, Asher was $39 short.  I set him up cleaning his room as well as Chancery’s to try to earn back some of the money he owed, as well as keeping him from watching the ‘worker-man’ open the door.  I wasn’t going to REWARD him for his bad actions.

Contained Snow Fun!

The other day the kids needed to release some pent-up energy, so I decided it was time to go play in the snow.  However, we have so much snow in the yard that it’s difficult for the kids to get around, especially Chancery, so I let them play on the deck.

It was a win-win situation, because I could stay nice & warm & enjoy a cup of coffee in the comfort of the house while the kids could play out in the snow.

 

I only had to open the door from time to time to tell the kids to stop trying to escape over the railing.  Asher thought he might shovel off the deck for us, but that proved to be too big of a job for him.  Instead, he settled for shovelling here & there until he tired of that, & then threw the shovel off the side of the deck.  I suppose it was a bit much to expect him to shovel two feet of snow off the deck, but it’s always good to set goals isn’t it?

Sunday Pictures

Asher – 4.5 years

Chancery – 2.5 years

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Asher: “Daddy brought us some new sweaters from Israel.”

 

Chancery: “And I really like mine a lot because it has PINK on it!”

 

Chancery: “AND it has cool buttons, not a zipper.”

Asher: “Mine has some random letters on it.  I tried to read them, but I couldn’t.”

Asher: “But what we like even better than the sweaters, is that Daddy is home again!”

Winter Investment

Since the weather’s still keeping us indoors, we had to invest in one of these to keep us active…

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!

Why Didn’t I Foresee That?

When PChad was gone last week, I though it might be fun for the kids & I to watch a movie & have popcorn one evening.  So, we popped the corn (in the microwave), got beverages, & settled in to watch one of the various Shrek films.

When it came time for Chancery to go to bed, I left Asher watching the movie, figuring he’d be fine for a few minutes.  As I came back downstairs, I kept hearing this strange *tink*  *tink*  *tink*  sound.  I turned the corner & was almost hit by a flying popcorn seed.

 

It was actually probably lucky that I was almost hit by one, because that made me look down to see that the floor was littered with popcorn seeds.  Apparently Asher had finished off the popcorn, & decided to see how far he could throw the seeds that were left in the bowl.

Rather than finishing up the movie together, he was given the task of finding all the wayward popcorn seeds, & retrieving them…

Declarations

Chancery & I were in the grocery store today looking at juice bottles for Asher to take to school.  I’m pretty particular about things like juice bottles, last time I bought him one I made sure it wasn’t a metal container, since I didn’t want to have to worry about the metal making the juice taste weird.

 

But he broke his old one a few weeks ago, & before I could PAY for a new one, Asher managed to break the replacement one in the store.  I figured that if he’s that adept at breaking the only non-metal juice container I could find, maybe it was time to breakdown & buy a metal one.  But I was still going to be picky…

 

So, Chancery & I were in the grocery store looking at the juice bottles.  The only ones they had were metal, & there were some with screw off tops, as well as some with straws.  I can totally see Asher spilling the entire contents of his juice container if he has a screw off lid, so I decided to go with the one with a straw.  The only problem with them, was they only had Batman designs.  Normally that wouldn’t be a HUGE issue for me, but there are pictures of the Joker & the Penguin looking quite menacing…  Oh well.  I picked one up anyway.

 

Chancery wanted to hold the juice bottle, so I let her.  She was looking at all the pictures & trying to open the lid & close it.  It was doing a great job of entertaining her, until she dropped it.  I’m not sure how she managed to drop it in such a way that it went rolling waaaay under the shelf & there was no way I could get it back.

 

I told Chancery, “Well that wasn’t good.  Now we’ll have to go back to get another one.”

 

And she replied by raising her little arms, & stating, “I. am. JESUS!!”

 

What do you say to that?

 

“Honey, you are not Jesus… let’s go get another juice bottle for Asher.”

Quick Thinking

The kids & I were headed to a friend’s house & we stopped by Tim Horton’s on the way to pick up some coffee.  As you place your order in the drive-thru, they always ask if you want to add a muffin, or donut, or whatever product they are pushing that day.  Today it was the chocolate chip muffin.

 

So, I ordered my coffee, then they asked, “Would you like to add a chocolate chip muffin to your order?”

 

 

“No, thank you,” I replied, but Asher had heard & he decided he WOULD like a chocolate chip muffin.

 

Asher: “Mummy, can we PLEASE get a chocolate chip muffin?”

 

Me: “No, Asher, there will be other kids there, & if we show up with one chocolate chip muffin, all the other kids will want one too.”

 

Asher: “Well, how MANY other kids will be there?”

 

Me: “I don’t know, maybe five.”

 

Asher: “And I will be the sixth one.”

 

Chancery: “No, I will be the sixth one!”

 

we pulled up to the window, & as I paid for the coffee Asher yells from the backseat…

 

Asher: “And could we please get SIX chocolate chip muffins too?”

 

Thankfully, the drive-thru lady couldn’t hear him…

Drips

I just love it when kids try to communicate something to you, & they get the general idea of it, but not quite the right words…

 

We were driving through downtown the other day when Asher piped up from the backseat, “Mummy, look at all the ICEBERGS hanging off the buildings!”

Icebergs indeed.

Sunday Pictures: Four Februaries

I’m still without my camera, but PChad comes home TODAY from his trip!  We’re all VERY excited for him to come home & tell us all about his adventures in Israel!

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2007

Asher - 8 months

 

2008

Asher - 1.5 years

 

2009

Asher - 2.5 years

Chancery – 6 months

2010

Asher – 3.5 years

Chancery – 1.5 years

Grab Your Shovel

So apparently PEI got so much snow this week that Rick Mercer came to help shovel us out…

(unfortunately he seemed to get lost on the way to my house) 

 

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

Appendages

Asher found a candy jar on the counter & asked if he could have some ju-jubes.  I asked him, “How many hands do you have, Asher?”

 

“Two,” he answered.

 

“Well, then you may have two candies,” I told him.

 

Chancery then wanted to have some candies, so I asked her, “How many hands do you have, Chancery?”

 

She’s pretty calculating, & answered quite quickly, “Three!!!!!”

Enough Already!

I like snow as much as the next guy, but when PChad’s gone, why do we have to keep getting dumped on? 

This was the path to the side door on Sunday.  I think you’ll agree, we don’t really need anymore snow…

 

This is how the kids & I spent Sunday (and then we had pizza delivered)  Not a bad day.

 

Here we have the back deck…

 

The car

(PChad can use the snowblower when he gets back from his trip)

 

 

The path I cleared for the mailman.  We back into the garage, so this path will work perfectly for the passenger side wheel.  In order to get the truck out (even with 4 wheel drive), I’d have to hack my way through that 3 foot drift on the left.

 

Here’s the path to our front door.

 

The main problem is that every time the snow plow goes by, he leaves me 2 more feet of snow on the last 5 feet of my driveway.  IN order to clear ANY snow off my driveway at this point, I have to chuck it onto the 6 foot tall piles lining the driveway.

 

I suppose it could be worse… the kids could be puking!

Literalist Or Smart Aleck?

While we were over at Mr. Harrie & Miss Geesje’s house last week, Chancery & Mr. Harrie decided to colour together.  Mr. Harrie asked Chancery to fetch some paper for them.

Mr. Harrie: “Can you go get me a small piece of paper from that basket over there, Chancery?”

Chancery answered an enthusiastic, “Sure!”

She took a while digging through the papers in the basket.  We figured she was looking for a fresh piece of paper without writing on it.

When she finally came back to the table, she handed Mr. Harrie  a hole-punch…

Monday’s Routine

On Mondays I help out with some math tutoring at the local Christian school.  In order to do this I have to have a place for the kids to go.  That’s not a problem since Asher is in Pre-K during that time, & I asked a friend (JJ) who does in-home daycare to watch Chancery for the the hour I need to be at the school.  After I’m done at the school, I pick up some coffee from Tim’s for JJ & I.  Then since it’s usually the only time I get to see JJ, the two of us chat over coffee until I need to pick Asher up from school.

 

Monday mornings are usually a bit of a rush & this morning I was encouraging the kids to eat their breakfasts quickly in order to get going.  Chancery doled out our assignments for the day:

 

“Yumi is going to school, and Asher is going to school, and I am going to Miss JJ’s, and Mummy is going to Tim HORTON’S!

…and to math.”

At least she remembered the important part.

Sunday Pictures: Flashback Edition

There’s lots of snow, church is cancelled, the kids are happily watching Fraggle Rock, PChad’s away on a trip & took my camera with him, so today we’re going back 2 years ago to the first Sunday in February.  Click here for the original post

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Asher – 2.5 years

Chancery – 5.5 months

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Chancery: “I thought it was picture time.  Let’s go, People!”

 

Chancery: “Thank you for joining me, Asher.”

 

Asher: “We’re waiting for one more in our party.”

 

Chancery: “How come YOU get to hold Thanet?”

 

Chancery: “Mummy, I want to hold Thanet!”

 

Asher: “Sorry, you’re too little, Chancery.”

 

Chancery: “OK, then I’ll just play with my feet instead!”

 

Asher: “Well, if YOU don’t want to hold Thanet, then I guess I don’t really want to either!”